


Seduction by Candlelight

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 05:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7255075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A broken down car, a seaside cottage, and candlelight. There's really only one possibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seduction by Candlelight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/gifts).



> Months and months ago gaslightgallows gave me the following prompt:
>
>> Remember my story "Beyond the Sea," where Phryne and Jack have a little hideaway seaside cottage? Car breaks down, they're stuck there, candlelight cuddling ensues. No smut. 2k word limit. 
> 
> It was right up my alley and exactly what I needed at that moment... which is why I wrote half of it and then forgot entirely. 

Placing her bag in the back of the Hispano, Phryne regarded it critically. There would be just enough room for Jack’s bag and the picnic basket they had used to bring the weekend’s supplies. How in the world they brought home less but still had a harder time fitting everything in was a mystery for the ages. From behind her she heard the cottage door shut, and she turned; the setting sun made everything just a little bit hazy, including Jack as he locked the door, and she smiled. It had been a perfect weekend.

“Come on then!” she called. “You’d almost think you didn’t want to go home.”

He loped towards her with graceful long strides, pressing a brief kiss against her mouth.

“Mm,” he said. “I have three double shifts and a court appearance waiting for me in Melbourne; I can’t imagine why I’d want to stay here instead.”

“But you have tomorrow off?”

“I do,” he said, smiling. “And I recognise that look. I have too many errands to run to stay, as beguiling as you are.”

Phryne pouted prettily just for the pleasure of seeing him smile again, then climbed into the Hispano. She started it… to no avail. Brow furrowing, she tried again. And then again.

“Really, Miss Fisher—”

“I’m not!” Phryne protested, attempting a fourth time. Nothing. “ _Fuck_.”

She climbed out of the car, peeling off her white gloves and removing her scarf, then rounded the front of the vehicle to examine the engine. Jack climbed down and joined her.

“Is it the…?”

“No, look here. There’s a—”

“Mm, yes. Do you have a—”

“There should be one in with the generator,” Phryne said. “I’ll go get it.”

She headed off, opening the padlock and slipping into the darkness of the shed. Of all the times for her impeccably maintained car to break down… but at least it was with Jack. She could tolerate his company far better than most. Not that they were going to be stranded, but if….

A sudden impulse struck her, and she smiled. On the off chance they couldn’t fix the motorcar, at least they could enjoy the results….

 

———

 

“I cannot believe that that your car and your generator managed to break down on the same day,” Jack huffed. “And on a Sunday night, so we can’t even reach a mechanic.”

“It nearly strains credulity,” Phryne replied, lighting the last candle. “But if it had to happen, at least the timing is acceptable. We’ll be home before lunchtime tomorrow regardless, and I’ll have an excuse to reschedule Aunt Prudence’s visit.”

She padded back to the chaise where Jack reclined, grabbing a throw along the way, then curled against his side, cheek against his chest; his arm slid around her easily. They sat like that for several moments without talking, Phryne’s hand inching beneath the hem of his jumper to stroke the skin beneath.  

“I like this,” she said eventually.

“Hmm?”

He was playing with the ends of her hair absently.

“Just, this. The candles and the company and feeling you beneath me. It’s…”

_Safe. Home._

“Comfortable?” Jack offered, always ready to give her an out.

“Yes,” she agreed, “comfortable indeed.”

They lapsed into silence again; this time he broke it.

“Are you alright, Phryne?”

She sat up, to better see his face in the candlelight. He looked… concerned, but not yet worried.

“I’m fine, Jack. Better than fine. Why do you ask?”

“We’ve been sitting here twenty minutes and you haven’t yet attempted to seduce me,” he pointed out with a wry smile.

She laughed, kissing him softly before resuming her position against him.

“I know I have a reputation to uphold and all that, but sometimes I like to cuddle.”

She didn’t point out that having someone to do so with was a rarity; men usually made it into her boudoir for the express purpose of more sensual pleasures, and post-coital touches didn’t tend to satisfy this particular urge.

“As long as you’re alright,” he said, drawing the throw over them both.

“I am,” she said quietly, then brightened. “And besides, I left my internal device in the car.”

 

———

 

Phryne woke up still on the couch, sunlight painfully bright even through her closed eyelids.

“Mmm, I need coffee,” she muttered.

“The generator’s down, remember?” came Jack’s voice from elsewhere in the room. She wasn’t awake enough to be certain where.

“Need. Coffee.”

“You really should have bought a cottage with a fireplace then, love,” he chuckled, and she briefly wondered whether she could shoot him for it. Not to kill, just maim a little. Though there really wasn’t a single inch of his body she’d be happy scarring.

“Coffee.”

“Not a magician.”

She opened her eyes. He was tidying away, because heaven forbid that he not be so adorably considerate that she couldn’t stay mad.

“Go check the generator.”

“I thought you said you knew what you were doing and that my offer to help was ‘an unnecessary assertion of my masculinity’?”

“Coffee.”

“I’ll go look—for the sake of coffee—then I’ll telephone into town; shouldn’t take more than an hour or so for a mechanic to come out.”

“While you’re at it, grab my bag from the Hispano and I’m sure we can find some way to pass the time.”

“Swimming?” he suggested with a grin, and she wondered exactly how fond she was of the skin of his forearm.

Unfortunately for her, the answer was ‘very’, especially when he rolled his sleeves up, so she settled for a glare and a threat.

“Jack Robinson, if you do not head out that door in the next ten seconds I won’t invite you next time.”

He winked at her—actually winked, the cheeky sod—and headed out the door. He came back inside ten minutes later, her bag in hand and a look of consternation on his face.

“What’s the matter, Jack?”

“The good news is that you can have coffee.”

“The bad?”

He coughed lightly.

“You may want to…remind yourself how generators operate.”

She began to laugh. “The switch on the back, yes?”

He looked at her, shook his head, and began to brew the coffee. When it was made he brought over two cups; Phryne sat up, extending the blanket out for him, and cuddled against his side.

“You could have just asked, you know,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.

“I could have, Jack,” she agreed contentedly. “But where’s the fun in that?”


End file.
